One of a Kind
by Becca Stareyes
Summary: Before a meeting with the Durona Group on Escobar, Lilly Junior corners Mark and asks for family advice. Kareen gives her own insight.


When he was traveling through Escobar, Mark would often stop and schedule a meeting with the Durona Group to discuss business. He was a silent partner -- mostly because he didn't know medicine, but he knew Lilly Durona had the same goals as he did -- but, he did like to know what was happening, and if he needed to shift funds from some of his other investments. That and he suspected a few of the members of the Durona clan liked to see if he'd flinch at biological talk over lunch.

This time, Kareen had asked to come along, even after Mark had warned her it was mostly going to be dumbed-down biology and finance, and she might well be bored. It thrilled him a bit every time she took an interest in his work, and he tried to do the same with her -- though, given one of her main interests was figuring out what made him tick, that was an easy matter.

Even off of Jackson's Whole, the lunch was a secure affair. Rather than dine out, Mark and Kareen had been led to a small meeting room in the main office complex, with a round table set with plates, silverware and glasses. A young woman, her dark hair tied back, was filling the carafe of water. "Lilly, is that you?" Mark asked. Kareen gave him a look -- Mark had told her that the Durona Group were clones, and that there was a more than familial resemblance between them. Mark, however, had been starting to learn who was who, or at least who was who of the Duronas he had met. Besides, just because you shared the genes of someone didn't mean you were cursed forever to be mistaken for them. Or you shouldn't be.

Lilly set the carafe down, and pulled out a chair. "Li- Grandmother said to tell you that there was a problem in one of the labs, and she'd be a little late."

"Not a big problem, I hope?" Mark asked.

Lilly shook her head. "No, just something that needs her personal attention." She looked at Mark, and Kareen, and then back to Mark. "You don't even live on the same planet as your clone-sib, right?"

Mark nodded, wondering where this was going. He suspected Lilly had just been asked to help set things up, and to convey the message from her namesake. Whatever followed as on her own initiative. "We visit sometimes, but he's got his job, and I have mine." Which was partially finishing school so he could do what he needed to do. But he and Miles were slowly coming to an understanding each time he visited Barrayar, one that meant someday they could live in the same house, if Mark so chose.

"That must be nice," Lilly said. Which was such a change from when Mark had first met her, a girl too young for the body she was in, born to be spare parts for an aging Jacksonian noble, and brainwashed into believing that was her divine destiny. That Lilly had done whatever she had could to reunite with her deadly progenitor, despite Mark's efforts. The way Miles had told it was that she had only started doubting when realizing there would be no glorious afterlife in store after her sacrifice.

But, Mark had learned you couldn't live in another person's shadow forever. Lilly had escaped from the orbit of Lotus Durona-Bharaputra, but was still surrounded by the Durona Group itself. It was certainly less oppressive, but the family had been forged by their matriarch in Jackson's Whole, where the little fish learn to swim together or get eaten. Old habits tended to die hard.

Mark figured he should say something, but Kareen beat him to it as he was thinking about what exactly he should say. "Oh, I know how that is," she said, and both Mark and Lilly stared at her. Lilly wouldn't know anything about Kareen, but her Barrayaran accent would single her out; Mark knew what most galactics thought about Barrayar. "I have three sisters at home, all blondes, and growing up it was like people thought of us as a unit. The Koudelka girls -- Miles even tried to organize us as a drill squad once."

Mark nearly interrupted, realizing that technically Miles was Admiral Naismith here, not Lord Vorkosigan. But, Miles had told him that his cover identity had been shot through with so many holes that the only reason anyone still bothered with it was because 'Admiral Naismith' was permanently retired from military service. "When I was old enough to apply for Tante Cordelia's scholarship to go to Beta Colony to study, I had sent in the forms maybe an hour after they were posted to the 'net," Kareen continued. "I love my sisters, and my ma and da, but I don't want to be only one of 'the Koudelka girls' all my life. I'm a person, not one fourth of a unit."

Mark found himself smiling. Trust Kareen to say the right thing, even if she had never thought much about clones before she met him, and didn't know much about Lilly 'Junior' Durona at all.

"Rowan went to Escobar before, for a year, to study," Lilly said, slowly, clearly thinking the idea over. "Do you think she'd help me go to Beta Colony, too? Or talk to Lilly about it? Could I?"

"If you want it, go for it!" Kareen said.

Mark nodded. He felt like he was channeling Cordelia here, but maybe that was part of the point of experience -- you felt like you had to pass it on to the younger generation. "You have your whole life ahead of you, Lilly. Trying things is part of the point."


End file.
